No expenditure on minority welfare schemes for years

Bhartesh Singh Thakur

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, February 18

No expenditure has been incurred on schemes related to minority welfare under the social justice and empowerment sector. The schemes of social justice and empowerment were discussed on Tuesday.

As per a booklet of schemes provided to all MLAs during the pre-Budget consultations, it was found that under post-matric scholarship for students belonging to minority communities, there was zero expenditure for 2016-17, 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20. Expenditure of Rs 24.63 lakh was incurred in 2014-15 and Rs 2.04 lakh in 2015-16.

The fate of pre-matric scholarship to students belonging to minority communities was similar. There was zero expenditure from 2015-16 to 2019-20 and Rs 52.75 lakh was spent in 2014-15.

The merit-cum-means scholarship scheme for minority communities’ students saw a decline from Rs 45 lakh in 2014-15 to Rs 5.65 lakh in 2015-16. There was zero expenditure from 2016-17 to 2019-20.

There was no expenditure on deployment of trained caregivers in the last four financial years and 50 per cent concession in bus fare in Haryana Roadways buses to senior citizens. No amount was spent on setting up a senior citizens’ voluntary service association for the last three financial years.

No amount was spent in the last five financial years on the scheme for providing spectacles to senior citizens. The pre-matric scholarships for SC and BC students were shown as nil for the last two financial years.

Under Indira Gandhi Priyadarshini Vivah Yojana, Rs 3.16 crore was spent in 2014-15. It fell to Rs 15.59 lakh in 2015-16 and there was no expenditure thereafter. There were similar dormant schemes in agriculture, health, education and other sectors.

On zero expenditure schemes, Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar said, “There are 1,590 schemes and between 350 and 400 of these which have zero allocation will be abolished.”

Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Om Prakash Yadav said no amount was allocated under some schemes to avoid doubling of allocation.